


Hermanito

by Rocinan



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Brotherly Bonding, Character Study, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon, Strangers to Friends to Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocinan/pseuds/Rocinan
Summary: Before the Professor and Berlin, they were only Sergio and Andrés. A scared little boy and a broken young man.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa & Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 30
Kudos: 89
Collections: Angst and Hurt/Comfort Prompts





	Hermanito

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [angstandhcprompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/angstandhcprompts) collection. 



> Filling the prompt: "Any fandom. I would love to see any good Character Study fic, that explores the mind of the character. Some trauma, PTSD, mental illnesses/disorders or violence would be a huge plus."
> 
> First time writing for this fandom *nervous laughter* I wanted to do a pre-canon character study, but this thing spiraled out of control. I am so sorry for how long it got. 
> 
> While binging the show, the relationship between these two fascinated me the most, but after all 4 seasons, I still don't know how they met or what their dynamic was. So I created this to tie me over until canon answers (one day, maybe). I don't think they had as rocky a start as what happens here, but what if...

The day after his father died, Sergio remembered burying his nose in a book, his too-big glasses misty with unshed tears. It didn’t rain on the day his father- his papá- died. It had been perfectly sunny when he fell in a flurry of bullets. He had died at the doors of the bank he never had the chance to rob. If he didn’t steal anything, did it really count as a robbery? The news said he had a gun. The police had said the same thing.

His father hadn’t hurt anyone (not yet, the news said). He died over paper, died for numbers printed on rectangles. That was how the world would remember the elder Marquina, a clumsy brute that brought his death upon himself. Everyone would remember him that way except his son, except Sergio.

He was only eleven (almost twelve), but he could piece it all together. The evidence on TV- from when the cops had searched their home- and his father’s stories. And the way his father had hugged him the day before, a tight embrace that said, “I promise, hijo, I promise you’ll get better.”

His father had died for him. For an ill little boy not long for this world anyway. And nobody cared.

It was on the third day, after the investigators had asked him everything they could, after his doctor had come in and told him to be strong, after he read through his father’s will, after it was decided that he would be cremated, after the nosy reporters had come and gone, that Sergio realized-

He was alone. Completely and utterly alone. 

He was healthy enough to be discharged (but he knew he would be back in due time). The only reason they kept him in the ward was because he had nowhere else to go. Not yet, at least. He knew enough to know that he would be placed with strangers next. Or maybe an orphanage.

He had a grandfather, but he was dead. He had a mother, but she died of illness- Helmer’s Myopathy- when he was five, too young to really remember her. Now he had no one.

Until he did.

On a Sunday, the seventh day after his father died, Sergio received a new visitor. 

* * *

One of the nurses had given him a book on origami. It was old and falling apart, but Sergio clung to that book in the days following his father’s death. He folded paper cranes and swans and little creatures of all sorts and shapes. It felt good to keep them by his bedside. Even if they were only pieces of paper.

But he felt safe. Able to shape the paper with his hands. He could control them. He could protect them. And they would never leave.

He had been folding another crane when the visitor came. 

“Hello Sergio.”

That voice was deep, but not quite as weighted as his father’s timbre-- it was softer, just the slightest bit light. And startled, Sergio looked up. He was on guard immediately. 

A man stood at the doorway, an easy smile on his lips- not quite a smirk, but not entirely kind. He held a hat in his hands, the kind that only well-off men could wear. He looked younger than his father and the doctors Sergio had met, but there was something angular about his face all the same, something wild and unkempt. 

“Are you mute?” the man asked, his tongue rolling into a tease.

He walked in, coat swishing, shoes tapping. As if he owned the place and Sergio was just another piece of furniture. What Sergio remembered first about the man was the green of his scarf, a tattered piece of silk around his neck. It nearly glowed against the black of his coat, his eyes, his hair.

Before Sergio knew it, the crane had slipped from his fingers into the man’s hand. 

“Ah, a young artist,” the man said, spinning the crane in his grip, “maybe we can get along after all.”

The crane was _his._ Seeing it in the stranger’s hands made Sergio so anxious that he felt his digits start twitching. He sat up in bed, gripping the blanket so hard his nails almost tore through. 

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The man sat himself on the edge of the bed, not caring whether or not Sergio wanted to move. He set the crane back on Sergio’s lap.

“My name is Andrés,” the stranger told him, “your brother.”

And Sergio could have crushed the crane in his grip. He shook his head. This was cruel, crueler than all the questions the reporters had asked, crueler than the inspector that looked at him like some criminal’s son, crueler than his father leaving him behind forever. 

_“No, you’re not,”_ Sergio said. “I’ve never seen you in my life.”

He was alone. And if this was some joke, he couldn’t handle it. This man couldn’t just walk to his sickbed and make him hope he had someone else. He just couldn’t.

“I take it your father never mentioned me.” The man- Andrés- sighed. “So Mamá never told you?”

Why was he bringing Mamá into this? Sergio glared downwards, unwilling to look Andrés in the eye. His glasses slipped to his nose, pinching it just above the nostrils.

“Hm. Fair enough. Why should she?” Andrés said, pushing Sergio’s spectacles back up with two fingers, “I was the rotten product of a failed marriage- if you could even call it that- and you were her reward, everything she wanted, after she left the _painful_ past behind.”

His voice was kind, his smile even, but there was a sneer on his tongue. Sergio could hear it even if Andrés thought he couldn’t.

“But the past has a way of coming back.” Andrés ran a hand past Sergio’s head, petting his hair as if he were a cat. “So little brother, Cain and Abel have reunited.”

“What do you want from me?”

“It’s not what _I_ want from you. It’s what you want from me- you can’t stay here forever, Sergio. But I can take you to my home. It would be legal- well? Do you want to live with me?”

Sergio was only eleven. But he was not stupid. He never had been. Maybe this was a scheme and Andrés was a liar, plotting some terrible fate for easy prey. Or maybe Andrés was another reporter, here to get more gossip about the criminal’s son. Why else would a man like this want to take in a kid that wasn’t his, a burden as big as Sergio Marquina?

“Are you lying to me?” Sergio said, sounding more scared than brave. “Lots of adults tried to lie to me this week. They think because I’m a kid, I don’t pay attention. But children are smarter than that. They listen. And when they listen-”

He was babbling, rambling circles into his own mind as the anxiety built up. 

“-They know the difference. I know when someone’s trying to lie to me. And-”

“I’m not lying to you,” Andrés said, amused.

Sergio fell silent. Maybe he chose to be stupid in the moment. Or maybe his intuition came through. Andrés was telling the truth. He really was his brother and he wanted Sergio in his life, whatever the reason. Sergio doubted it was anything good, but he did not want to go to an orphanage.

“Can you swear it?” Sergio stared at him, putting on his bravest face. “Can you swear you’re not lying?”

He wanted the questions to be demands, but they sounded like pleads. Even so, Andrés chuckled. He left the bed, and dropping to one knee, put a hand over his chest, under the green scarf.

“I, Andrés de Fonollosa,” he said, head held high, “swear to you, Sergio Marquina- my little brother- on my life that I am telling the truth.”

Sergio had no real reason to believe him. But he did. And two days later, he left the hospital at Andrés’ heels.

* * *

Sergio wondered if he smelled of antiseptic. Andrés had made him shower at the hospital before they left. It had been a while since Sergio had been outside and the sun was too bright in his eyes. Everything was too loud, and bright, and strange. He’d walked the exact same streets before, but never without his father.

When he thought of that man, Sergio felt a snatch in his chest. So he pushed it away, and thought of Andrés instead.

His brother didn’t seem to care that he was just a child, a sick one at that. Because Andrés never slowed down. He was brisk in his steps and he never bothered to look behind, to see if Sergio could keep up. Andrés was taller than his father, slimmer. Or maybe he only felt taller because he held his chin high (while papá's back had always been a little hunched).

Twice, Sergio almost reached for Andrés’ hand. But he thought better of it. Andrés was not papá. Brother or not, he was still a stranger and despite his flowery words, he did not seem to like Sergio one bit.

It wasn’t until they got on the bus that Sergio noticed his brother’s cologne. He had been too wired up in the hospital to take in its scent. It was strong, overwhelmingly so, but easy to smell. Nothing like the musk of his father’s sweat. Andrés looked like a man who could not sweat anyway.

“My car was damaged some days ago,” Andrés told him, wrapping an arm around Sergio’s shoulder (kindly, but without affection), “you’ll have to forgive its replacement. We might be using it for a while.”

Andrés never said he was sorry about Sergio’s father. But he did sound sorry about this, as if he expected Sergio to care about a bus ride.

“It’s okay,” Sergio said, “I don’t mind.”

“Good. But it won’t be for long.”

They didn’t say another word to each other until the bus reached their stop. Andrés stood first, and without checking to see if Sergio was following, left the bus. But Sergio was already at his side by then, a battered suitcase of belongings trailing behind him.

* * *

Sergio soon learned that the finest things Andrés owned were his clothes. His brother looked (and acted) like a man who lived in a mansion, or a four-storey apartment at the very least. But Andrés lived in a rundown old building, somewhere in the worst part of the city (and even Sergio’s old neighborhood was better than this). The elevator was under maintenance, though the sign looked over a year old. So they took the stairs instead, Andrés carrying the suitcase up.

“You don’t have to do that,” Sergio told him.

His brother shrugged. “I can’t have you falling and breaking your neck.”

And he chuckled. But Sergio hadn’t found it very funny.

Andrés’ home had three “bedrooms,” but in reality, it only had one (a single chamber that functioned as living room, kitchen, and suite), a bathroom that made Sergio feel as if the walls would crush him if he moved too much, and a closet that could fit his suitcase under a line of jackets. Sergio knew they were once-fine clothes, but the jackets and ties and shirts looked old, much older than Andrés himself. At least they had one thing in common- Sergio also only owned hand-me-downs.

The black coat, it seemed, was the best piece of clothing Andrés owned. That was why, Sergio would later observe, his brother wore it whenever he could.

“We’ll go to your father’s home tomorrow,” Andrés said, pulling out an extra blanket from a drawer, “and see what you can bring back. Just make sure we can fit it here.”

Sergio nodded. He looked to the couch. Andrés had already set out a pillow and quilt on it. It was the perfect length for a child his size.

He stumbled when Andrés tossed the blanket at him.

“Keep this with you at night,” the man said, “it’s not pleasant here when the weather gets cold.”

Sergio didn’t think it was ever pleasant in the apartment, regardless of season. 

“Are you hungry?” Andrés asked.

“No.” Then his stomach growled.

And Andrés laughed at him again. But he didn’t mock him this time. While he turned on the stove, Sergio brought his books (gifts from the nurses and his father, manuals on art, texts on philosophy and workbooks for math) to the shelf in the corner. Andrés had filled it to the brim.

Sergio would have to rearrange it if he wanted room for his own books (and new books for that matter). Besides a few books on philosophy and art, the shelf was entirely filled with fiction novels. Sergio recognized all their names, but several books looked as if they had never been flipped.

As if Andrés had put them up for the sole purpose of seeming well-read. 

Sergio had been so deep in his task that he started when Andrés’ arm crossed in front of him. Andrés pulled out a novel- vintage- that looked like it had actually been opened more than once.

“This one is my favorite, _hermanito.”_

Sergio did not miss the mockery in the last word, but he pretended not to realize. He adjusted his glasses and read the title: _Arsène Lupin._

Andrés dropped the book in Sergio’s hands. “You can have it if you want.”

“Thank you.”

“My home is your home now.” Andrés grinned, still something sly and uneasy about his smile. “Now come here. The food’s ready.”

Andrés was a better cook than his father. But Sergio still found the potatoes too greasy and the chicken too hard to chew. Andrés asked him if he wanted more salt, but nothing else. When they finished their food in silence, Sergio took their dishes to the sink. He had read it in a book once, or perhaps he saw it in one of the shows on TV, so he knew what a polite guest should do. His father never let him do chores when he was home.

But this wasn’t his home. No matter what Andrés said.

Sergio washed the dishes without a comment. And Andrés did not stop him.

That night, Sergio tossed and turned on the couch because he couldn’t sleep. The tenant upstairs was playing a song that grated his ears. He heard toddlers crying from down the hall. And somewhere downstairs, a woman was screaming while a man yelled. He clutched at his quilt and buried his face in the pillow. But nothing could drown the sounds out.

Then he smelled something other than Andrés’ cologne. Coughing, he sat up.

“Andrés,” Sergio heard himself say, “are you smoking?” 

From the bed, Andrés was taking a drag from a cigarette, a glass ashtray by his side. Smoke left his lips.

“Does it bother you?” he said, casting Sergio a sideways glance.

There was no taunt in his words. But there was no concern either. It was just that, a question, detached, blunt, and to the point.

So Sergio answered honestly: _“Yes.”_

Andrés put the cigarette out. And Sergio never saw him touch one again.

* * *

Andrés’ girlfriend drove them to Sergio’s old home. Or, she had introduced herself as Andrés’ girlfriend. Maybe she was only joking. Andrés had only told Sergio she was a friend. If they were really a couple, he would be living with her and not Sergio. And Sergio didn’t know if that was a joke or not.

Either way, she drove them over. Then rolling down the windows, she stayed in the car, puffing from her cigarette and replaying cassettes while the brothers boxed what they could inside the house.

There wasn’t much to choose from, but Andrés insisted Sergio choose carefully. 

“You need to be intuitive about this,” his brother told him, “this is all you have left of your father.”

Sergio’s chest knotted again. He didn’t like it when Andrés spoke of his father. Because whenever he did, he spoke of him like he was just some other man, not Sergio’s papá.

In the end, he took one of his father’s shirts, a family album, his grandfather’s journal, and a pile of books his father had intended to gift him. 

“Is that all?” Andrés asked.

“Yeah.”

“What about that?” 

Andrés gestured at a stuffed owl, cotton coming out of its seams. 

Sergio frowned. “It’s just an old toy. We can go now.”

“Most children hold bears,” Andrés said, lips curving into that familiar crooked grin, “are you afraid of bears, hermanito?”

“No, I’m not.” Sergio took his glasses off, rubbing the lenses against his shirt. “Don Alvaro was a gift and I didn’t have many friends, so yeah, I slept with him for a while, but I know he’s just a cotton doll- all stuffed animals are- but I’m too old for it now.”

Sergio rambled on. And he didn’t really care if Andrés was listening or not. He’d wanted to stay quiet for as long as he could, but sometimes Andrés would ask a question that pushed him a little too far and the words would fly out.

“Okay, okay,” Andrés laughed, “I understand. You’re a man beyond your years.”

Then he checked his watch. He clicked his teeth towards the door. “Then are you ready to go?”

Sergio nodded.

Andrés grabbed Don Alvaro, thrust it atop one of the boxes, and carried them out. Sergio was quick to follow. Before he shut the door behind them, he looked at his father’s home one last time, memorizing the clock on the wall and the mat by the door. 

On the ride back to the apartment, they’d stopped for lunch. And then Andrés had sent Sergio up first. When he glanced behind, he saw Andrés pressing his (girl) friend against the hood of the car, her hands in his hair. Adults enjoyed such things. Sergio didn’t.

That night, the phone rang. When Sergio answered, another woman told him she was Andrés’ girlfriend.

And Sergio had frowned. “But he already has a girlfriend.”

“Pass him the phone, please,” she said.

When he did, Sergio had to cover his ears. Andrés and the woman weren’t quite yelling, but they spoke loudly enough to rival the couple downstairs. 

“Hello!? Hello!?”

Andrés held up the phone, the other line dead. Gritting his teeth, Andrés slammed the phone back in place. 

“Sergio, never take my calls again,” he hissed, pure irritation in his eyes.

Andrés seemed mad, though not mad enough to scare Sergio. The boy went back to removing his books from the box on the floor. It was the first time Andrés was annoyed with him, and a part of Sergio knew he should be nervous. But he was relieved.

Because in that moment, Andrés was less a stranger with a silver tongue, and more an older brother, the way a sibling always looked on the television and in his books. For once, Sergio could read him. 

“Why do you have two girlfriends?” Sergio asked. He didn’t want to apologize- he knew nothing about how adults behaved with one another, but he was sure that Andrés deserved to be yelled at.

“I don’t. They were only friends, both of them.”

“I don’t think they knew that.”

“So what do you think, hermanito?” The taunt was back on his brother’s lips, but angry this time. 

“I think they really liked you. But you like yourself too much to see it. Now you have _no_ friends.”

Sergio leaned against the couch, squinting at the ceiling as he dissected Andrés’ problem. “You should say you’re sorry. I don’t remember much about Mamá, but whenever she and papá fought, one of them always apologized-”

“Mamá doesn’t apologize,” Andrés said coldly. “She never did.”

Sergio went back to his books. And after regarding him a moment longer, Andrés threw off his shirt and went to the bathroom. He liked to shower once at night and once in the morning, so he could always smell of soap before cologne.

When he went to bed, Andrés admitted to Sergio, as if confessing some huge sin, “I didn’t let you take the bed because the sheets aren’t clean. I don’t think it’s any place for a child. If you’d like to know why-”

Sergio pretended to snore. 

* * *

His father’s funeral happened two weeks after his death. It was quick and cold and nothing like the funeral masses Sergio read about. There were no guests and only Sergio mourned alongside a priest. He waited while the corpse was cremated and sealed into an urn. He knew where his father wanted to be buried, and it was not a cemetery.

Sergio delivered a clumsy eulogy to an audience of one-- he hadn’t known who else to bring, so he brought Andrés. He knew Andrés had no reason to care about his father’s death (about the man that stole his mother), but his brother’s presence had comforted him nonetheless, if only because it meant he wasn’t alone. 

Then, the urn safely tucked into a backpack, Sergio found himself wandering his old neighborhood with Andrés. They were still in their funeral clothes.

“Will you miss it here?” Andrés asked him, rather off-handedly, when they passed his father’s home.

It was the second time they had been back since the day with the boxes. Last time, it had felt as if Sergio was leaving home. This time, it was only an empty house. But even though he wasn’t sure if he really believed in the afterlife, Sergio liked to think his father was with them now, strolling through the neighborhood one more time.

“No,” he said. He wouldn’t miss the house. Not without the man inside.

There was a candy store at the corner of the last street. His father used to buy treats for him there. He’d tuck it into a secret bag and wink when he brought the candies to his ward. The house no longer made him think of his father. But the store did.

He stopped in front of its glass windows, remembering his father’s promise to take him inside when he was well. A promise he couldn’t keep.

“We have an hour before the bus arrives,” Andrés said, patting him on the shoulder, “come on.”

Andrés held the door open, waiting for Sergio to enter. Sergio was hesitant, but he went in regardless, and Andrés followed. 

While Sergio looked at the sweets in their jars, Andrés asked, “What do you want?”

He looked away from a lollipop. “Nothing. I’m just looking. My father always said he would bring me here. But-”

“You’re here now.”

He was. But not with his father. He was with the wrong person. And as soon as he had that thought, a pit of guilt settled in his stomach. He still didn’t know if Andrés liked him or if he liked Andrés, but his brother had come for him when he had nobody else. He had kept true to his word. He had accompanied him to the funeral of a man he probably hated. If nothing else, Andrés was trying.

For the very first time, Sergio found the right word. Trying. That was what his brother had been doing all along.

Before they left, he squeezed Andrés’ fingers, flinching when he saw the unwelcome shock in his brother’s face. Quickly, he let go.

“Thank you,” Sergio said. He hoped Andrés knew he meant it.

Outside, they crossed another street. And when he thought no one was looking, Andrés put his hand behind his back. Fingers returned to his side, twirling a lollipop between their cracks.

“I lost my grip in there,” he said with a light wink.

Sergio gaped. It was the same one he had been looking at. Stealing is wrong, he almost said. Then he remembered the urn in his backpack. And even though he knew it was wrong, he didn’t want to say it out loud.

“Hold out your hands, hermanito.”

Sergio did. And Andrés slipped him candies from his sleeves. 

When they boarded the bus back to Andrés’ apartment, Sergio had the lollipop in his mouth. He plucked it out and looked at Andrés, his brother still holding his head high.

“Andrés, I think we should have paid- it wouldn’t cost much.”

“Maybe. But would you have let me? I thought you didn’t want anything.”

The taunt was back in Andrés’ mouth, light words and jokes that Sergio was growing to hate.

“Still- it’s one thing to steal when we have no choice, to help other people, but I don’t know if it’s right to do it whenever we want.”

Andrés scoffed. “You’re the most precocious ten-year-old I’ve ever met.”

“I’m eleven.” 

“Then I’ll let you in on a secret.” Again, a crooked grin. “I’m not Robin Hood- I’m Arsène Lupin.”

* * *

Sergio still didn’t know what his brother did for a living. He knew Andrés had a job because he would leave Sergio home alone during the day. He had only kept him constant company in the days following his father’s death. A month later, Andrés told him he had to return to work but he would always be back to prepare dinner.

Sergio couldn’t find any cook books among his collection or Andrés’. But his brother had managed to provide him three meals a day regardless. And he made sure Sergio had a wardrobe to match his own, the newest clothes in boyhood vogue. Sometimes he wondered if his three meals meant Andrés was only eating one, if his new clothes meant Andrés’ suits would stay old, but he didn’t dare ask.

Sometimes Andrés was childish, temperamental, irritable. He felt like a big brother then, like someone Sergio had grown up bickering with. But more often, Andrés was calm, a little too vain, and difficult to grasp. He was not a father nor a friend. Only a riddle that Sergio didn’t want to pick apart.

Not because he couldn’t, but because he feared what he would find.

The answer was in the whispers on the phone, the box of gloves hidden under Andrés’ bed, the jackknife he kept behind the shelf, the smudges of red on the bottom of his boots.

Sergio once found blood in the sink, too much to have come from a shaving accident. And he didn’t know why, but his gut told him the blood was not Andrés’. His father had never hurt anyone. But he could not say the same for his brother.

Maybe it was only a matter of time before he hurt Sergio too. But he must have known that Sergio didn’t have long to live anyway.

Andrés had told him that if he could get through the year without another stay in the hospital, they could put him in school next autumn. Sergio hadn’t argued. He had once been excited to start school- then the illness took hold. He didn’t want to be let down again. And now a part of him wondered if Andrés only meant to drop him off at school and never return. It was possible.

There were infinite possibilities, infinite outcomes, and all interlinked.

He studied the pages from his father’s psychology textbook, a gift that stayed unwrapped. With nothing else to do, Sergio spent his free time folding swans and analyzing his brother. Andrés always spent too long in front of the mirror, but he complained about women doing the same. He never found fault within himself and he seemed to think he lived a better life than he really did. The evidence was all around. Andrés was more David Copperfield than Arsène Lupin, more Don Quixote than Don Juan. 

At first, Sergio had thought his brother’s confidence a facade put on for his benefit. Now he wasn’t so sure. His confidence bordered on maniacal. And whatever it was Andrés did for a living, he was convinced it would never go wrong.

“Why did you take me in?” he asked Andrés one night, when the dishes were done and his brother was in bed with a newspaper in his lap.

Paper cranes littered the floor. 

Andrés glanced at him. “If you don’t pick up your origami pets, I’m throwing them away. There’s barely enough room for _us_ in here.”

Sergio bent to scoop up his projects. “It doesn’t line up with your character. Having me by your side won’t impress anyone, it won’t make your life better, it doesn’t really make sense.”

A chuckle, low and intrigued. “My ‘character’? What is this, Sergio- are you psychoanalyzing me?”

“According to this book, you might be a narcissist.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. I go to great lengths to see my body as a work of art- the body, you see, is the master stroke of a painter’s brush.”

“It says you don’t care about other people’s feelings. Which I think is true, since you never said sorry to your friends-”

“You’re _still_ going on about that?”

“-but you do care about someone’s feelings, which makes it hard to label.”

“Oh? Enlighten me, who is this oh-so-special someone in my narcissistic life.”

Sergio bit his lip. “Me. You understand my feelings. And I don’t know why.”

Andrés put the newspaper aside. He pondered that statement. Then he cocked his head. “What would you like me to say, hermanito? That I was shocked when I saw my mother’s lover on the news? That I wanted to see what kind of offspring she had with that man, what made her second son so much more valuable than her first?”

He stroked his chin. “Or should I say that I saw my little brother in the news? That I felt some immediate kinship with him because he had nobody else? That I wanted to take him in because nobody had taken me in?”

A smirk. “Or that I was contacted as his next of kin? And knew it would reflect badly on my honor if I refused to raise this child as my own?”

Andrés’ words stung, Sergio admitted, but he’d learned by now not to take anything his brother said at face value.

“Which is it?” Sergio asked, equally blunt.

Andrés lay down. “I don’t know.” He said it severely, but there was an unmistakable laugh in his voice.

For all Sergio knew, everything he said could have been true, or nothing he said. With Andrés, it was hard to tell. As an observer, Sergio knew there was no true answer. As the younger brother, he hoped it was not the first option.

* * *

Sergio hadn’t cried over his father since the day he died. He hadn’t cried when the reporters visited his ward or when the police questioned him until his throat was parched. He hadn’t cried at the funeral. He hadn’t cried when he left his old home. He hadn’t even cried when he removed the urn from his backpack.

But that night, he did.

It had been raining all day, and by evening, a thunderstorm joined the downpour. Andrés had long since fallen asleep in bed, and Sergio was only kept awake by the rattling of rain. Lightning flashed, and a strange panic seized his throat.

He found himself reaching for Don Alvaro, the stuffed owl that he’d refused to touch. As a joke, Andrés had left it on the couch. Perhaps as a dare. But Sergio didn’t care about any of that now.

He clutched the owl to his chest. And it all came rushing back, his father’s shaving cream, the stories of robberies he told him at night, all the trips they would never take, his father’s hand around his own, the feeling of safety that was once so close to his heart. He felt his father’s beard, the fabric of his shirt, his warmth, his voice. 

All of that now memories in ash, memories that were fading by the day. Papá was dead and nothing could bring him back.

Sergio cried. He cried and cried, sobbing into the owl’s head. 

“Sergio?”

Andrés had stirred awake, another clap of thunder rocking the window on the wall. 

Sergio didn’t care if Andrés heard him, if he saw his tears. He couldn’t stop it. So he didn’t try. It was as if every tear he’d held in chose to come out now, streams of salt that would never end.

Arms were around him. Not his father’s. He was hoisted up. He buried his face into Andrés’ chest, snot and tears rubbing against his bathrobe. Andrés was not his father. This was wrong. It was all wrong.

And it was all his fault.

When he opened his eyes- still sniffing- he was sitting on Andrés’ bed, his brother rocking him back and forth as he gasped his lungs out.

“I miss him,” he wheezed, “I miss him so much.”

“I know.”

There was no taunt this time, no grin or smile. But Sergio couldn’t see Andrés’ face in the dark, not through the tears, not without his glasses. He could only feel the man’s embrace, the gentle fingers carding his hair, the muttered, “it’s all right,” between his brother’s lips.

In the morning, Sergio woke up with puffed eyes, Don Alvaro still clutched in his hands. But he was lying in Andrés’ bed, held in the crook of Andrés’ arm. And the rain had shrunk into a light shower outside.

* * *

Sergio didn’t think they could afford to eat at a Michelin restaurant, but Andrés had insisted his new raise could afford them a lot of new things. Soon, they could stop taking the bus because he would have a newer, better car. He’d even bought Sergio a matching three-piece suit to celebrate the occasion (and Sergio didn’t want to know how expensive it was).

“What are we celebrating?” Sergio asked him across the table, “your raise?”

“Every day should be a celebration,” Andrés said, swishing his wine (he’d offered Sergio a sip but he refused), “one doesn’t need a reason. But no- we’re celebrating you tonight.”

Sergio furrowed his brow, Andrés having slicked his hair back, leaving his forehead exposed to the night air.

“Me? Why?”

“Your doctor told me you’d have a relapse in two months. A possibility, of course, but a high one. Now it’s been four and here you are.”

Sergio looked at his soup. It tasted good, too good. “But we didn’t have to come here.”

There was still a chance of a relapse. And he would be too weak to move again. Then he could only look back on this night and his brother’s smiling face with a pang of guilt.

“Yes, we did,” Andrés answered, “any progress is progress worth celebrating. Next thing you know, we’ll be celebrating Christmas together.”

“And New Year’s?”

“And New Year’s. We’ll watch the fireworks and stuff our mouths full of grapes.”

Against himself, Sergio smiled. It was tempting to believe Andrés, the certainty in his voice and the laugh on his face. It was so painfully tempting.

It would be his first Christmas without his father. And though Andrés had not replaced him, something had changed between them. Sergio didn’t quite know how to describe it, didn’t know how he felt when he woke up one day and found his origami pets placed in a jar. Andrés had threatened to throw them away. Instead, he sealed them in a jar and asked Sergio to write his own name on its glass.

“Andrés, if we do make it past New Year’s- I think you need to spend less on clothes and more on food.”

Andrés frowned. “Do you go hungry at home?”

“No, I mean- _I_ don’t. But I think you do, and that’s not very healthy.”

“Forgive me, hermanito, but you’re not exactly an authority on health.” Seeing the offense on Sergio’s face, Andrés laughed. “I’m kidding. But you know, not everyone can see what a man eats. They can- however- see what a man wears. And what can be healthier than a beautiful aesthetic?”

“Not starving to death.” It was Sergio’s answer, deadpan.

But Andrés only kept grinning, sticking a bite of beef between his teeth. “You’re funny, brother- remember that. There’s a charm to the way you talk.”

Sergio bumped up his glasses, the steam from his soup clouding its lenses. “Okay… but if I end up back in the hospital, you’re going to regret spending this much on dinner.”

Then again, the money probably wasn’t Andrés.’ Even so, it had become his once it passed his hands. His and Sergio’s too, he supposed.

“Nobody will end up in the hospital.” Andrés swallowed. He picked up his glass again. “I promise. Will you trust me?”

Sergio wanted to believe his grin, the laugh in his eyes, free of mockery but teasing all the same. So he dared to say, “Okay.”

Andrés was almost wrong. Somebody did go to the hospital in the end. But it wasn’t Sergio.

* * *

The week before Christmas, Andrés had been particularly busy. “It’s the holiday season,” he’d told Sergio, “a good time for work.”

He came home later each night, always tired to the bone and sweaty with adrenaline. By then, Sergio had figured out what Andrés’ supposed job was. He had the same _job_ as his father. But there was a difference- Andrés was younger, meaner, and as loathe as Sergio was to say it, better at what he did. At being Arsène Lupin.

But Andrés had a flaw, a strange one, Sergio would soon learn- an ego too big combined with a commitment too great, where either his self was all there was or not there at all. But back then, at age eleven (near twelve), all Sergio knew was that something was wrong.

The phone rang sporadically, and whenever it did, it was in the hours near morning, not as early as midnight sharp. 

When Andrés answered, the other line spoke for a long time. Sergio pretended to sleep in his bundle of blankets 

“Where?” Andrés said, hushed.

Sergio strained to listen, an address almost whispered into his ear.

“I’m on the way.”

Andrés hung up. And Sergio repeated the address in his mind, again and again while Andrés dressed, button-up, scarf, and fine black coat. He donned his hat, and before taking his leave, stopped to put a hand to Sergio’s brow.

Minutes after the door shut, Sergio sat up. He wiggled out of his pyjamas and hands trembling, dressed himself for the cold. He put on an ugly grey jacket Andrés hated, but it was warm, and it had done its job just fine for the past three years. He wasn’t sure if he made the right choice.

He picked up the phone. And after the call, he rushed out after Andrés, repeating the address in his mind.

* * *

It was not an incident the brothers liked to speak of. Years from then, Sergio would wonder if that night had simply slipped from Andrés’ memory, too unimportant for his brain. He himself would think less of it with each passing year, but Sergio would always wonder if it would have been different- for better or worse- if he had stayed at the apartment.

But when he was eleven, spurred by his gut and the fear of his brother disappearing into the night, he followed the address to a neighborhood not too far from where they lived. He didn’t think it possible to find an area worse off than their building, but the whisper in his ear led him over. He could only describe it as a ghost town, boarded up, emptied, and falling apart.

And he found himself hiding behind a flicking streetlight when he heard Andrés’ voice.

“You said there were changes to tomorrow’s scheme. Evidently, that’s not the case. Explain why you called me over.”

Another voice. Several, but they were farther away or more rasped. Or perhaps Sergio was too nervous to hear their words.

“I beg your pardon? Are you accusing _me_ of stealing the loot? You son of a-”

It was the first time he heard Andrés swear. There was no taunt in his voice, only fury, something murderous that made Sergio flinch. He knew then that Andrés had hurt others before, perhaps done even worse in the name of his _job._

He counted. Ten, nine, eight-

He heard punches, Andrés’ grunts and another man’s cries of pain. It sounded like blood cracking against knuckles. They were all yelling by then, cursing and howling and-

-Five, four, three-

Gunshots. Firecrackers going off, the same bullets that had felled his father. Sergio lost count.

He crawled out from where he hid, and he’d yelled- “Andrés!”- before he could stop himself, stop every nerve and sound from his body. But he was in the open by then, in the middle of that flickering light.

But the bullets had not hit Andrés. Andrés was the one with the gun, firearm in one hand, the other man’s throat in his other, another head beneath his foot. A man had his pistol held up from across. 

“Who the fuck is that!?” another yelled.

He saw Andrés blanch. He had never looked scared, not once since Sergio first met him. That was the first time Sergio ever saw him look less than perfect, hair askew, blood on his face, frenzy in his gaze.

“Sergio,” his lips seemed to say.

Sergio heard his assailant’s cry next - “Get out of here, piece of shit!”- before he saw the man come at him with a broken piece of pipe. Years later, he would be able to block it at the very least, twist it from his attacker’s grip and swing it upon the opponent’s head.

But back then, he had only been a boy scared out of his wits. The pipe was too fast for him to dodge.

But Andrés was faster.

The gun dropped. 

Sergio fell on the ground, seeing stars, his breath knocked out. Above him, Andrés held on tight, his coat falling over the boy beneath. And Sergio saw the pipe come down before Andrés’ shoulder blocked everything from view.

He heard the pipe fall on Andrés’ back instead, a sickening crack of steel on flesh and the rattle of his brother’s body as the pipe came down again.

* * *

Sergio was still lying on his back, tears frozen to his face, when they kicked Andrés off him. His eyes darted to where Andrés lay, his brother unrecognizable under all that blood. It crusted on his head, coated his face, dyed his scarf and the shirt beneath. The man with the pipe was breathless on his knees.

And the other one- the man with the gun- kicked him again. He spat down at him, and wrenching him upwards, shoved the nozzle into his mouth.

“Fucker, I’ll ask you again- where’d the money go?”

Andrés gagged, but he hadn’t meant to speak. When the gun pulled out, the other man came forward- the one that had been lying beneath Andrés’ foot.

“How about we ruin your pretty face, kid, fuck it up real good.”

He had a knife at the edge of Andrés’ jaw. He let it trail down, to where the buttons of his shirt began. He began cutting them away, one by one.

“Fuck it up too badly and can’t even sell this bastard,” the one with the gun mumbled, a glare at Sergio, “here, you fucking listen to me- tell me where my shit is and maybe we’ll let that _little shit of yours_ go.”

Andrés struggled then, weakly trying to claw at the man’s arm. They shoved him to the ground, an onslaught of kicks following as Andrés gasped and wheezed.

_“Stop it!”_

Sergio was on his feet, trembling, pale. “Stop it.”

What could he say then? _Stop it, please?_ What could he do? All he felt was bile.

Andrés was shaking his head, a whispered “go” from his bleeding lips. There was so much blood. And the rest of them were laughing, at Andrés, at Sergio, at all the blood on the ground.

The man with the pipe towered over him. Sergio braced himself-

And the sound of sirens approached.

* * *

The sirens were no coincidence. Sergio had planned it an hour beforehand. But he had not called the cops- he had called the paramedics to that address. Not because he anticipated their need, but because he needed a distraction for Andrés to escape (should Sergio’s gut be right).

In truth, the confrontation itself had only lasted _minutes._ And minutes were all it took to reduce Andrés to the mess on the ground. The others had run off.

And by his brother’s side, Sergio tucked the flaps of his coat aside. He saw marks on Andrés’ chest, broken skin and violet bruises, blood flowing out and from within. Sergio had planned for everything except himself, except what the fear of bullets did to his brain. It was impulsive.

And his brother had paid the price.

“Why?” he asked through the tears, trying to ignore the blood seeping into the dirt beneath. “Why did you do that?”

But Andrés wasn’t listening to him. Eyes forced shut, he only wheezed, a bubble of blood gathering at his lips. “Go- hurry- before-”

He coughed, wet and pained and terribly raw. Sergio screamed his name, clutching at him while he cradled his head. And he was still crying out, “Andrés!” when the stretcher arrived.

* * *

Sergio had never been on the other end of a sickbed. He wondered if- no, he knew- this was what his father used to feel. It was excruciating, a kind of agony he never knew existed, the exact same thing he felt when his father died and completely different all at once. Perhaps because his father had already been dead by the time he found out.

Andrés was still alive. And because there was hope, it destroyed him all the more.

His glasses had been bent in the attack. He barely noticed.

All he could see was the oxygen mask on his brother’s face, the tubes and wires poking in and out of his skin, the white bandages across half his head and all of his shoulders. This man looked nothing like the Andrés he’d first met.

There was no teasing glint behind eyelids, no grin on his bruised lips, no sign of the vanity or pride his brother had shown.

And it was his fault. Sergio had caused this, just as he had caused the death of his father. Perhaps his mother too. He wiped his tears again. He had once feared that Andrés didn’t want him, that he hated his burden of a brother. Now he wished Andrés did hate him, that he would feel anything but love-

If he didn’t care, he could have let that pipe hit Sergio instead. Maybe it would have killed him on the spot. But then Sergio wouldn’t be in a chair, his face wet, as he remembered Andrés dying on the ground, _for him._

He hadn’t wanted to care for Andrés, hadn’t wanted another person to leave him behind. And he hadn’t wanted to hurt his brother. That was the least of what he wanted, even if Andrés had abandoned him from the start (as he should have).

They had insulted Andrés by calling him a boy. But it wasn’t untrue. Now that Sergio could see him without any airs, he recognized the youth in his features. He was a man, barely, and his father would have thought Andrés was just another boy. Barely a man and trying to raise a boy.

It was hard to wrap his head around, but Sergio could see it, could see Andrés at age eleven, holding the infant that would grow to be Sergio. 

And because he was afraid he would never have another chance, Sergio took one of Andrés’ hands in his. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“I love you,” he said.

He should have said it much earlier. But he had been too scared. And now it was too late. 

* * *

Sergio left the hospital before Andrés woke up. He had been in and out in some attempt to mimic his father’s routine. The first time he’d returned to the apartment on his own to get rid of his bloodied clothes and change into something cleaner. He had wanted to take Andrés’ coat home, but it was ruined beyond repair, stained with too much dirt and blood to clean.

The second time, he had prepared a suit for Andrés. He didn’t know if his brother would frown on his choice, but Sergio knew Andrés would die of anger if he had nothing to wear but the ugly paper gown when he awoke. 

The third time, he’d brought some spare paper back. He spent his hours folding paper cranes by Andrés’ bedside. He couldn’t concentrate on reading, not until he knew his brother was stable. 

And the fourth time, Sergio did not plan to return. He didn’t want to trouble Andrés with his presence any longer. He had disrupted his life enough as it was. He would pack his things and disappear- and hopefully Andrés would have the good sense not to follow.

But he knew a part of him was simply scared of what Andrés had to say to him. He did not want to be kicked out, not when he finally came close to calling the little apartment home. But home was nothing without the man inside.

And just with the night that led them here, Sergio wondered what would have happened if things did not line up as they did when the sun fell.

He had been on his way to the building, in the streets between the apartment and bus stop when a hand snatched the hood of his jacket from behind.

_“You little piece of shit.”_

It was the man with the pipe.

“You know, don’t you- where did he hide the money?”

Sergio struggled to shove himself free, but the man’s arm was strong, hard muscle against his neck. 

“Let me go!”

A hand closed around his mouth. 

“Look around you- no one’s here to help! If you know what’s good for you-”

Sergio fell on his bottom, thoroughly shaken when the man cried out in pain. He stumbled backwards, pressing a palm to his shoulder, blood seeping through. 

“I’ll fucking kill you,” a new voice growled.

The click of a gun. Sergio turned. Andrés was leaning against a wall, haphazardly dressed in the suit Sergio had brought. He was paler than chalk, eyes dark and bruised, half his face still covered in scabs. But his hand was steady as it trained the gun on the bleeding man.

The man sneered, a last ditch effort to bluff. “You can barely stand. What could-”

Bang.

The bullet caught him in the other shoulder.

“I’ll give you three seconds. If you’re not gone by then… I kill you.” Andrés limped towards him. “If the boy wasn’t here, I’d blow your brains out. Three, two-”

The man ran. He ran faster than any injured human could, but Sergio was glad he did. He knew Andrés would keep his word, that he would splatter his head against the sky.

When he was sure the man was gone, Andrés looked to Sergio and grinned. He cocked the gun. “He’s lucky. I was out of bullets.”

_“What?”_

“I was aiming for his head, but I think I’m out of practice, hermanito.”

Sergio ran to catch him when Andrés fell, half collapsing to his knees. And Sergio would have fallen with him if Andrés hadn’t steadied him with his grip. There was blood on his hand, evidence that he’d ripped the IV out not long before.

“Andrés, what are you doing here!?” Sergio cried, “you’re hurt, you- you shouldn’t be-”

“I needed to see you.”

Andrés cupped his face, feeling for tears. And Sergio saw how bloodshot his eyes were, the wetness inside, and he knew-- Andrés had feared for him as much as he had feared for Andrés.

“When I woke up- I thought-” Andrés trailed off. “I should have fucking killed him.”

Then he pulled the boy into a hug, a tight embrace not unlike how he’d held him the night of the thunderstorm. Sergio heard his breath squeeze, as if he was ready to weep.

“It was my fault,” Sergio said, the words cracking, “I-”

“No. No, it wasn’t. I would do it again, Sergio, I’d do it again.”

“Andrés-”

“I love you- I love you,” Andrés let the phrase roll out, delirious, as he clung to Sergio. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, I’d rather die-”

That hadn’t been what Sergio wanted to hear. So he let the tears come out, burying his face into Andrés’ broken shoulder. 

It was not the last time Andrés would almost die for him. But it was the first of many times that he survived. And again, Sergio felt as if it should have rained.

But he only clung to his brother instead, the moment fading into a memory between a page.

Before the Professor and Berlin, they were only Sergio and Andrés. A scared little boy and a broken young man.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, comments & kudos are appreciated!
> 
> Hope this was at least semi-in character (I like to think Sergio and Andres weren't born with those personalities from day one, but that there would always be shades of their canon-age selves at every stage of their life! I love Sergio but have a love/hate thing with Berlin so this errs closer to his Season 3/4 characterization). 
> 
> Also would anyone like to see a sequel from Andres' pov? They still have to bury Sergio's father, celebrate the holidays, and get Sergio started on his mastermind career.
> 
> Unfortunately, no Palermo in this one since he probably met Berlin when they were both closer to their 30s. But IF he was here, this whole fic can be summed up with a conversation like this-
> 
> Andres: Martin, this child single-handedly ruined my sex life, my financial life, my bathrobe, and my fight scene but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in the room and then myself


End file.
